The Time of the Seasons
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: Once a year for as long as he could remember that familiar burning emptiness inside of him would start; the heat that urged him to find another to touch him, knowing only their seed could end it. But after losing as many children as he had to Odin, Loki found a way to avoid his heat altogether, until he fell. Stuck on Midgard without his remedy Loki felt the burning start again...


I had this idea, and because I've never seen it done outside of the Thorki fandom I wanted to give it a shot, but since I had so many other WIPs I was going to wait. But then I was talking to aonorunic on tumblr and, well, thanks for talking me out of it? Not? Lol.

This should have been up a week ago, because I got most of it done Friday, but then I had a busy weekend, and then I got stuck on the porn.

Idk guys, I can write, and write, and write, but the porn starts and if I look away for even 0.1 seconds… BAM… cock blocked or fic blocked, idk

"The Time of the Seasons"

**Disclaimer: ** The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.

**Summary: ** [Loki/Tony] Once a year for as long as he could remember Loki that familiar burning emptiness inside of him would start; the heat that urged him to find another to touch him, knowing that only their seed could make it end. But after losing as many children as he had to Odin, Loki found a way to avoid his heat altogether, until he fell. Stuck on Midgard without his remedy, Loki felt the burning begin again, and there was only one who was willing, only one whom he wanted to breed with. But Tony Stark would have to prove himself first, show that he was capable and worthy of siring the child of Loki Laufeyson.

**Warnings: ** Slash. Loki/Tony. Post-Avengers. Language. AU. Character Death. Violence. Heat Cycle. FrostIron. Jotun!Loki. Loki feels. Thor's attempt at explaining things. Mentions of Mpreg. Voyeur!Hela.

**Rating: ** NC-17.

**A/N**: Yeah. I need to get my hands on some Prozac or something. My fics are made of tears and dead unicorns.

_XXX_

"_As in their living in the living seasons  
The time of the seasons and the constellations  
The time of milking and the time of harvest  
The time of the coupling of man and woman  
And that of beasts_." – T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets, East Coker No. 2".

**Words: **7,034

**Chapter 1**

It started with the barely there pooling of warmth in the bottom of his stomach. Nothing more than taking a deep gulp of luke-warm tea, waiting for it to hit your belly and then feeling heated from the inside out for about three seconds. This was how his heats always started; a little warmth and then a burn, scalding and ravaging all across his belly and then his back, hot, hot, hot and Loki would press his cold fingers against his skin to dull the heat. His blood rushed through his veins, thick and heavy, and sometimes Loki felt like sleeping, and then his heart would give an almighty thumb and all he could think of was sex.

He remembered his first heat. He had been young, barely more than a child, and his legs had shook and his nails had clawed grooves into his stomach because he couldn't understand why he was so hot inside. At first he had stared at Benadinar, the mason who had offered to build them a great wall around their city to keep out the Frost Giants. Loki had resisted, because the man was dirty and poor and ill-suited to the Prince of Asgard, and anyway he had never had sex before and he no idea how to go about propositioning someone. It had frightened him, how desperate he suddenly was to experience all of the things Thor had talked about doing with the wenches at the taverns. Except, what frightened Loki more was that he wished to _be_ the tavern wench, spread beneath the body of another man and pleasured. His stomach had roiled at the thought, even as his temperature increased. Afraid and worried, that there might be something wrong with him, that he might be cursed, Loki hid in his rooms, kept away from Benadinar and tried to ignore the fire that consumed him whole.

Until the bet was almost lost, and Benadinar had almost completed the wall, and all of Asgard were calling for Loki's head on a pike. What could he do? What other choice did he have but to cause a distraction? So he led Svadilfari away, his new legs unstable and shaky because he had never been a horse before and even now, even now he burned. But the closer Svadilfari came to him the hotter Loki felt, but there was a voice inside of him screaming "No", demanding the other work for it, demanding his worth be tested, and so Loki ran. He ran through the forests and over the marshes and back again, because he did not think that, as a horse, he could run across mountains without breaking a leg.

When Svadilfari caught him, Loki bucked and kicked and turned his head to bite at the other horse's face, his legs, his flank; any part that Loki could reach as he tried to avoid being mounted. Eventually, Svadilfari had him pinned, trapped against part of the new wall and his own larger body, and his instincts went silent, because the sire had won. Loki had held still, sparks firing behind his closed eyelids as his brain struggled to understand why this was ok. He had wanted the builder, not the horse, and yet? Svadilfari had earned the right to breed him; Svadilfari had fought and won against him, chased him, trapped him and kept him pinned down while they mated: he was a worthy sire to their child.

They stayed together for two days, and when the burning was done, Loki was left feeling as if he had drunk far more mead than was strictly safe. He felt dizzy and nauseous and his hands continued to shake. Or, hooves, rather, since he had found himself unable to change back into an Æsir.

Svadilfari had left him, as most animals did after the breeding was complete. Loki waited in the forest, shaking from the suddenly unfamiliar cold that had flooded his body once the fire in his belly had been quenched. He couldn't think, couldn't understand, why this would happen to him. A mare in heat could become impregnated, yes, but they were the same symptoms Loki had been experiencing before, and _he_ should not have been in heat.

He did not resent his child; Loki welcomed Sleipnir wholeheartedly instead into his life, and he was pleased enough to learn that it was not a onetime incident. He birthed two more sons himself before realising that what he was doing was unnatural. No other magic user could conceive for themselves. No Elf or Dwarf or Midgardian that Loki had come across and questioned knew of any male that had borne his own child, and two centuries later his mother gave the prophecy, claiming that Fenris would end the All Father during Ragnarök and Loki lost all of his children at once.

His revenge for the loss of his sons had been punished by the death of his twins and their mother, his wife, had left him to his suffering so she could grieve alone. His daughter was long lost to him on Helheimr, banished there as Queen, false supplications to a child who was not welcome in her own home. Here, have a world, now leave ours.

From then on, when the burning started, Loki resolved to fight it, to ignored it, or to indulge it with women only taken from behind on their knees so that there was no chance of them reaching around to touch him or certain parts of him, incense and herbs to prevent fertility burning and filling the air with spice and certainty. It was those spices that Loki learnt could stall his heat. Instead of having it twice a year, and then once a year as he aged, they came sporadically, once every decade or so. And he could live with that, because he went far away, hid himself upon the branches of Yggdrasil, nails biting into bark, until the flames burnt themselves out.

Then came Thor's coronation, and Loki's fall, like Lucifer he fell with the stars exploding all around him trailing angel dust in his wake and he landed on a rock in the middle of dead space surrounded by the Chitauri and still his heat did not come. He could only be thankful for that, that no matter what else they did to him none tried to lie with him. In his heat, Loki would have begged them for it, they would not have been able to resist the scent of him, the heat of his skin, the musk of his desire, or the tingle of magic pooling behind his stomach (at his back not his belly, where the Jötun carried their spawn to term so that none of them ever really looked pregnant, none ever looked vulnerable). They would have wanted him and Loki would have fought them, struggled and run from them, but they would have caught him because he would have had nowhere to go, and if there was more than one they would have fought each other until the strongest was left and that would have been enough for Loki's instinct to silence, for his legs to spread, the burn inside of him growing steadily hotter until he was taken and bred and left behind in shame again. But the heat didn't come. Not that year.

Not when he was taken back to Asgard for punishment either.

It was two years later, after he had escaped with Amora's help, and taken refuge on Midgard (occasionally pulling a prank or blowing up a few vehicles or whatever took his fancy on the day) that Loki felt that familiar sensation again. It was a barely there pooling of warmth in his belly, low down and growing fiercer by the moment. Loki glanced at the water he was drinking, swallowing heavily, hoping that it was tea, whiskey, anything that could have heated him up like this. But no, it was water and it remained water, and Loki placed the glass down with trembling hands.

Green eyes were wide as they glanced around the room, taking in faces and bodies, trying to settle on one that was worthy of him. But none called out to him and his stomach clenched, with disgust this time, at the thought of allowing any of these mediocre mortals to touch him. Perhaps, he hoped futilely, there was enough time for him to hide himself away? He could slip between the worlds, hide upon Yggdrasil until the burning passed, or perhaps go to Alfheimr or Helheimr if his daughter would let him. There would be no one to breed him in the land of the dead without Hela's permission and Loki was welcomed among the Fae and Elves as he was not in many other places; it would be easy in Alfheimr to find a woman willing to bed him, to lose himself in her and forget that what he really wanted was to be taken instead.

Loki stood, raising out of the stool so fast it tipped over. A man caught it, pushed it upright and reaching out to touch Loki's shoulder.

"You ok?" He asked.

Loki glanced at the hand on his upper arm. Even through the clothing, Loki could feel the heat off of the man's hand and it burned like fire dancing over his skin. The coiling in his stomach was back, like a spring all wound up and ready to burst free. Brown eyes narrowed when Loki remained silent and Loki's tongue was frozen at the sight of Iron Man. Tony Stark was the last person Loki expected to run into: he had gone out for a drink, just one glass of water and one glass of wine, like he did every Saturday night before his Sunday early morning breakfast after six hours sleep. It was his ritual, the one thing he clung to on Midgard that was the same as his life in Asgard. He would drink in his rooms on Saturdays, instead of frequenting the taverns or the dining hall with Thor and Thor's friends, and servants would bring his breakfast on Sunday and he would eat alone. He had done the same every weekend since he found himself in Midgard, too afraid to leave in case Heimdallr discovered him but too scared to socialise overly in case Thor did. And now Tony Stark had his hand on Loki's arm and Loki's blood thrummed to the beat of the human's heart.

Their mouths met. Loki was desperate and vicious, pushing himself close to Tony and urging the other man's hands around his body with his own hands. Their groins rubbed together, both half hard already and Loki whimpered at the thought of touching flesh to flesh. He wanted it, terribly, and right now, but he was disguised as a mortal, and no matter his desperation he would not out himself to Iron Man by using magic to get them to the nearest bed. He was cleverer than that.

"Fuck me," He whispered into the man's ear, instead of simply teleporting them to Loki's flat.

Tony groaned, the scent of Loki driving him wild. The God smelled like pine and burning wood, heady and strong, and there was a hint of musk every time Loki's head fell back to offer his throat. Tony allowed himself to be dragged to the door, and then to his car, and Loki was all over him in seconds, pulling his shirt off and his belt out of its loops.

But it was a different story when they reached Tony's bedroom.

A voice inside of Loki's head started screaming that this wasn't right, that _Tony_ wasn't right. He could do better, the voice claimed. The mortal isn't good enough, his mind hissed, and Loki agreed completely. He had made Svadilfari and Angrboða both work for the right to sire upon him, and Hela's sire too; why should Tony Stark be any different?

He tried to ignore the burning, because it was almost unbearable now, heat melting him from the inside out and there was sweat on his skin and his cock leaked pre-come, so intense was his need, but Loki pulled himself away from the human. Tony let out a small whine, missing the feeling of Loki pressed against him.

"You are undeserving," Loki told him, eyes narrowed into slits. He backed away from the bed, on his hands and arse, scrambling away from Tony. The mortal stood up, running a lazy hand down his chest until he could encircle his cock with it, stroking lightly. Pink lips pulled up into a smirk, watching Loki's eyes fix on his cock, dilating until they were nothing more than black inside a thin ring of green.

"You want me," Tony drawled, sounding husky and excited, and he stalked towards Loki's prone form.

Loki ran. He darted to his feet, slipping on their discarded clothes twice until he managed to get around to the opposite side of the bed. Tony watched him across the room, hand still stroking his cock, and then he was on the bed. His movements were unhurried, some animalistic part of his brain soothing his libido, consoling himself with the fact that if Loki was truly trying to run he wouldn't have come home with him at all, wouldn't be running away from the door.

"What's your name?" Tony asked, making his way across the bed on his knees. Three of his fingers were in his mouth, running across his tongue and over his teeth while he slicked them with spit, getting them ready for Loki.

Loki didn't teleport away, because if he did the mortal could not follow, and he would burn alive by the time he found another who was worthy of him. Stark was intelligent and attractive and aggressive, and his hands were on Loki's arms again, pulling him harshly forward until Loki ended up sprawled across the bed with a cry.

"No! No!" Loki hissed, bucking beneath the mortal that had moved to lie completely on top of him. He hadn't finished yet, he hadn't tried hard enough to get away, and in his heat thought and magic was almost lost to him, strength had never been his most useful weapon, though he was stronger than a human, and he gave no thought to shoving Tony away or to throwing his head back to break the man's nose. Instead, his legs spread themselves shamelessly as fingers worked their way between his crack. He grunted, lost to sensation, as one followed by another, and another, made their way inside of him, but he continued to struggle half-heartedly beneath Tony.

Loki reeked of desire, pheromones and fire, and Tony sniffed deeply at his throat, licking strips across his flesh with every deep breath he took. Slowly, Loki's struggles stopped, and instead he began pushing backwards, fucking himself on the fingers within him. "Lo," the God murmured, not wanting to give his full name in case Stark's mind was as strong as was rumoured and he had enough mettle to resist Loki's heat; in case Loki was enough to turn Stark off of their mating. "My name is Lo."

"Tony," the man replied. Loki glanced over his shoulder, eyes widening. The man had reached over to grab something shiny, and Loki's struggles started again, more excited than afraid, as the human pulled his arms behind his back and wrapped the bracelets of metal around each wrist. "Handcuffs," Tony told him smugly. "I made them out of titanium and adamantium. My ex used to always wiggle her way out of the cuffs, and I got a bit sick of it, see. Hope you don't mind, Lo."

It was stunning that the man could speak so much considering how far gone each of Loki's other mates had been during his heats. Angrboða could only grunt and pant over him, unable to give so much as his name when Loki asked what he should scream when he came. And yet Stark could form full sentences, coherent ones at that. A part of Loki was insulted at the thought, because it meant that he was doing something wrong, did it not? So he parted his legs further and arched his back, offering himself willingly for the first time that night, not fighting, not struggling or resisting, but instead giving in completely to his heat because this was new.

Tony was something new, and unlike Hela's sire, he hadn't simply forced his way inside of Loki, fucked him and left him bleeding. Angrboða had stayed with Loki for a century, bred him twice, and only left him after their second child had been born in animal form, but even he had not been so gentle with Loki's body. He was forgetting of course that each of his other mates had been immortals of a kind, a horse of a giant, a giant, a Vanir, Asgardian; Tony was only mortal, weaker than the others, but what was weakness was partly mistaken for kindness as Tony used a fourth finger to open Loki up completely.

"Now, now, now," Loki begged between moans, until eventually Tony's cock was pushing at his entrance. It breeched him easily; slick and loose as he was, and Loki rutted back and forth fucking himself on the cock before Tony even had the chance to get used to the tight heat surrounding. Loki was scorching on the inside, made of fire and flesh in equal parts, and Tony moaned at the feeling of it surrounding his cock. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the bedroom, punctuated by Tony's moans and Loki's litany of "more, Stark, Tony, harder, faster, more". The drag of Tony's cock along his prostate had Loki crying out, mouth open wide as he shouted; Tony's hand closing around his cock pulled another wail from his throat and Loki couldn't decide whether he should push back on Tony's cock or rut forward into his hand. Both felt wonderful, and the heat was fading, little by little, replaced by Tony's sweat and pre-come, and soon it would be gone completely all burnt out until the next time. Loki thought for just a second, just before he came, in the moment when his brain was switched off and all that mattered was his pleasure, that he might keep Stark around for the next time; like Angrboða, Loki might have several children with Tony.

His head was thrown back, dark hair flying out of his face as he came. He heard something crack, but thought nothing of it; his mind was focused only on the burning in his belly that continued unhindered and the shaking of his legs. Tony had stopped moving behind him, lying heavily over him but no longer fucking him though he had yet to finish himself. Loki wiggled, trying to crawl out from under the human, to see why his mate had stopped but the handcuffs were making that difficult. He broke them, easily tugging his wrists apart until the metal snapped and fell away. His skin was chaffed but the redness was already fading as Loki pushed Tony off of him.

The human lay on his side on the bed, and Loki nudged at him with one hand, giving a low whimper when the touch failed to rouse his mate. There was blood on Tony's face, around his nose and eyes and there was something awfully flat about his nose as well. Tony was silent, but there was a voice speaking to Loki from the ceiling, notifying him that the Avengers had been summoned and were on their way home. Loki paid the voice no mind, except to drag Tony closer to him, hands always touching the other man as he attempted to protect his unresponsive mate from an unseen threat.

The blood stained Loki's cheek when he leant down to kiss Tony. His lips didn't part and his tongue didn't try and force its way into Loki's mouth, and the God pulled back with a frown and a furrow between his eyebrows. He nudged at Tony again, tapping his cheek and then prodding his chest. He even tried to lick Tony's neck, because the mortal had seemed fond of doing that to Loki and it had made _him_ react with a moan. But nothing happened.

The blood was starting to congeal by the time the Avengers appeared at the doorway. Loki waved his hand; instinct dictated that he keep himself and his mate sequestered away until he had conceived or until his heat was over, whichever happened first. Since he was not yet pregnant and his heat usually lasted at least two days otherwise, Loki cast a spell on the room. No one could get in or out until he decided otherwise. The Avengers were left standing in the threshold, screaming at him and banging their hands futilely against the invisible barrier that separated them from their team mate.

"Tony!" Steve shouted, before shooting a wide eyed look at Bruce who was starting to look a little green around the gills. "He isn't moving. Why isn't he moving? TONY!"

Loki glanced at him and then back at the mortal, following Steven's example. He hit both hands against Tony's chest, while shouting his name, hard enough that the man's head lifted off of the pillow before flopping back down. Loki grinned. He watched the man's face, waiting for his eyelids to flutter shut then open again but Tony continued to lie still.

"He's dead," Natasha whispered. Loki paid them no mind, more concerned with trying to wake his mate than he was with the intruders who had already proved they could not get into his den.

"Why the fuck would you say that?" Clint hissed. He rubbed his right hand over his eyes, his left clenching tightly around his bow. He couldn't look in the room, couldn't bear to see Loki who had let his illusion slip during his orgasm. That man had taken over his mind and forced him to kill his colleagues, to hurt innocent people for a stupid attempt at world domination, and now he was butt naked and curled pathetically around Iron Man. It was almost heart breaking, the way Loki would whimper a little more with every failed attempt to wake Tony, but at the same time this was the bastard who had murdered him.

"The way his nose is flat? My guess," Natasha said, knowing from experience despite how hesitant her words sounded because she had killed many men the same way, "Loki head-butted Tony and the cartilage went up into his brain. It would have been a quick death, clean and painless. Just a little blood. He wouldn't have even had the chance to scream."

"Well that's comforting," Bruce panted. The words were forced out of his mouth, cloying and heavy and it hurt to breathe around them. His hands were clenched around the doorframe, wood splintering in his grip. The tips of his fingers were green, as were his cheeks, but they all faded back to tan when Thor whispered:

"It was an accident."

"What?" Clint thought he might have asked, but Bruce's mouth was open and Steve's too, so maybe they had all spoken simultaneously. Natasha's lips were pinched together tightly, but she glanced back into the room, at Loki who was frantically shaking Tony's shoulders now, green eyes wet and semen dried across his stomach, and she almost believed Thor.

"Loki has not taken a mate in many, many centuries." They all turned to stare at Thor, almost forgetting about the two men in the other room but not quite because their eyes kept flicking back over their shoulders every time Loki made a noise. "He ran away to Jötunheimr when we were a century old, barely more than children by your standards. He had mated with a Jötun there, a Frost Giant and had two sons by the time we found him. The Jötun had left him and my brother and nephews came home with us happily. I did not understand where the children had come from or why Loki had them or why he had went there in the first place so I asked my father. My father explained that Loki went through periods of heat."

"Like cats and wolves?" Clint asked looking suitably confused.

"Aye. Periodically, my brother seeks a mate to create a child together. It is because Loki is of Jötun heritage, though I did not know it at the time. Back then father explained that it was because of Loki's magic, like his magic making him female and that was how he had borne Sleipnir. But Fenris and Jörmungandr were born from a male Loki, and then Hela. His wife carried their twin boys, but he every other one of his children. After he fell, when I thought him dead, father told me the truth about Loki's birth and parentage and I asked about them then, the Frost Giants. They mate twice a year as adolescents and once a year after they reach full majority. Loki has not had a heat nor taken a mate since Father had Narve and Vali killed. I don't know how he stopped them," Thor added with a shrug, eyebrows furrowed and tears drying on his cheeks. He kept his eyes on his brother, still unsuccessfully trying to wake his mate, even while all of the others watched him.

"It was not a permanent solution obviously," he said, waving his hand towards the room. "My brother would not have taken a mate only to kill him. It was an accident. Tony's death was an accident and we can do nothing for either of them, my friends, until Loki's heat passes."

They had more questions, and many angry objections to the idea of helping Loki with anything, but they allowed Thor to lead them away from the bedroom. That night passed and the next day and then most of the night after. Thor had brought a chair from the kitchen and had it placed with its back to the wall. He sat on it, facing forward, so that he could keep an eye on both the bedroom and the corridor simultaneously, and he waited while watching the slow rise and fall of his brother's naked chest as he slept. Loki had stayed awake from the moment the Avengers first found them until ten minutes ago, and Thor knew from what he had read and been told by Odin and from what Loki had told him years ago, still children and still trusting, that the heat had ended once the urge and the energy to mate had dissipated. That he slept proved that Loki no longer cared for sex and that Tony had still yet to stir proved Natasha right.

"Good morrow, brother," Thor whispered when Loki began to stir.

It started with the rolling of his gut, nausea and dizziness; the feelings that always followed his heat. His hands shook lightly, patting the bed at his sides as he tried to feel and remember where he was. Memory would return when his eyes forced themselves open, but for now Loki kept them squeezed shut and focused on the burning in his arse and back, the notable lack of burning in his belly. He was not with child, he could tell that straight away, knowing after four pregnancies and many more heats the difference between his body after heat and his body after conception. There was no tenderness around his stomach or chest and the urge to stay hidden was absent. Also, glaringly, absent was the stickiness that usually coated the back of his thighs, the then-wet-but-now-dried seed that should have been inside of him. Loki pressed one hand back, finger dipping just barely into his hole, far enough to know that nothing more than pre-come had been left there. He frowned, eyes snapping open.

Why had he not mated? Had his mate left him? Was it not good, had _he_ not been good? Thoughts flew around his mind like a hurricane, ripping down his defences, until he was left with shaking hands and legs in the middle of the bed with a dead body sprawled beside him.

"T-Thor?" Loki whispered, glancing around at the voice that had spoken earlier. He had assumed it was his mate, greeting him after their night together (the breeding unsuccessful, but the possibility for later, for more, another heat had still existed then). "W-what?"

"Let me inside, Loki. Let us take Friend Tony for burial."

"No!" Loki hissed, instinctively moving to cover Tony from view, and then drawing back with a hiss from the feel of unnaturally cold skin against his own. He had never been warm to touch, and last night Tony's skin had burnt into him, searing him down to the needy bone, but now he was like ice, or death, still and stiff and frozen. "He is my m-m_ate_!" Loki's voice broke half way through the last word. He blinked back the tears that threatened to fall.

"I know," Thor whispered softly as he rose out of his chair.

"I didn't mean to," Loki told him, voice trembling. With a wave of his hand he was fully dressed and standing beside the bed. His skin tingled, missing the presence of his mate, and he frowned at the thought of bonding himself to a mortal, to a dead man. How foolish was he, how desperate for affection that he would latch onto the first person to touch him gently in this century. He should have known better. He should have known the mortal could not handle him, was not strong enough or dangerous enough; was not worthy.

"I know." Thor smiled sadly at him.

Thor could still remember Loki's screams when he had been told Angrboða had been killed. They had hunted him down, Thor and some of his friends because Loki was a Prince of Asgard and had deserved far better than to be made into some Jötun's whore and then discarded. He had cried for Svadilfari too when his master had executed him for the betrayal and abandonment that had resulted in his loss of the bet. Loki had even defended Hela's sire, the only one to harm him sexually ever, by never mentioning his name. Loki would not have purposely harmed one of his mates, nor did he feel as little as he was trying to pretend he did. There was no love between Iron Man and Loki, because they had not known each other long enough or well enough, but there was mutual desire, and Loki's soul, his very being, had latched onto that. The desire, the need, Tony's ability to be in charge and dominate and take what he wanted had been enough to convince Loki's inner self that this was enough, that this was right. They had been tied together, as Loki had been tied to each of his past mates, and they had been torn apart by a cruel trick of fate and bad fortune.

"I never get what I want," Loki whispered.

He glanced back down at the still mortal before leaning down to run his fingers softly over Tony's face, closing the man's eyes at last. Loki ignored the tears on his cheeks, and he avoided looking at Thor knowing he would see only pity on his fellow God's face. Similarly, he avoided glancing in the direction of the other Avengers, who were one by one appearing at the threshold, held back by Thor now rather than the barrier Loki had let fall. Green eyes stayed fixed on Tony's face, remembering every line of it and imagining what their child might have looked like had it been conceived; like Tony, or like him, or a bit of them both; would it have even looked human?

But it mattered not, he supposed.

"Goodbye," he whispered at the mortal.

"Perhaps you will see him again in the next cycle?" Thor suggested. He made no move to stop his brother, instead keeping his team mates out of the room until Loki had disappeared, taking Tony's discarded shirt with him.

As the Avengers' shouts faded, disappearing as the room around him disappeared and the scent of Tony dissipated, Loki thought on Thor's words. He had meant the next life cycle, after Ragnarök was done and the world would begin again as it was destined to.

But Loki only thought of his heat, which worked in cycles too. In the twelve months between this heat and what would be his next one Loki made no attempt to prevent or delay the burning need. He burned no incense, he consumed none of Alfheimr's special herbs, and he went out of his way to avoid women and unpopulated areas. He stuck close to his male comrades, pressing against their sides as he teamed up with each one on a different occasion to throw the Avengers into turmoil, but none of them started the fire inside of him. When it started, like tea pooling at the bottom of his stomach, tiny embers of what would soon be a fire hot enough to consume him whole, Loki pulled Tony's stolen shirt out of the chest he had hidden it in and took a deep sniff. It was surrounded by a preservation spell, keeping the scent that was purely Tony Stark locked in to its very fibres. At the smell the fire danced inside of him, jumping at the smell of _mate_, sending shockwaves of desire through Loki's every nerve ending.

The shirt was held close to his face as he teleported.

He went to Helheimr, where usually no one was interested in quenching his desires, where no one but his daughter had time for him at all. For Loki's next cycle, he bartered with Hela for his mate, offering her human souls, as many as she wanted from whatever city she wanted him to attack in return for Tony. He could not have forever, not until the next life cycle began, if it ever began or if this one ever ended, but he could have one heat cycle.

Loki spent his next heat in Hel, on his knees with his fingers buried deep in his arse, face down and pressed against Tony's shirt while his other hand stroked his own cock. He panted Tony's name, eyes wide and mouth slack as he came, and Hela's newest warrior watched him, lips quirked at the edges and brown eyes blown wide with lust as he unlaced his trousers.

"Hello, Lo," Tony murmured, skin pale peach instead of grey, though the arc reactor remained missing leaving behind the unsightly hole in his chest. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Missed you," Loki murmured as he spread his legs wider, keeping his eyes fixed on Tony's face, wanting and needing but not knowing how to ask for something he didn't deserve. There was no desire to run, or to fight, no need to make Tony prove himself, because Hela had chosen him to serve her, protect her, so Tony must be strong enough to defend him while he was vulnerable; Tony had forgiven him, so Tony was good and kind and loyal, he would care for their children; Tony was beautiful and fitting for a Prince of Asgard, friend of the future King and mate of the second son so he was deserving. Loki had already chosen him, already mated to him, and it was only Hela's mercy that allowed Tony to be a part of his life, Hela's powers over the dead that allowed Loki to speak to Tony in his dreams at night, under her watch but almost alone together, no different to Thor watching him frantically trying to wake the dead man, no less intimate.

"I love you," Loki added, because twelve months was ample time enough to get to know someone and fall in love with them and never want to let them go.

Tony's lips twitched again. When he was finally naked, his strange Asgardian clothing in a pile around his feet though he kept on the collar and arm bands that all of Hela's army wore, Tony moved to stand behind Loki. He held his cock in one hand, the other reaching forward to cup Loki's arse first before sliding two fingers inside of him without warning.

"What was that?" Tony asked, twisting his fingers around to try and find the bundle of nerves that had made Loki wail the last time they had done this.

"Fuck me, please, please fuck me, please!" Loki begged, as he arched his back. His head was hanging low, his mouth moving against the shirt that still smelled of Tony pleading almost incoherently for anything to stop the burning. "I want a child. Please, please, please, Tony, mate please?"

Tony lined himself up and pushed, filling Loki in one smooth motion. Loki's eyes widened, the fire in his belly fading a little in the face of his sudden fullness and for a moment Loki thought he would die, because surely he shouldn't be so full. Tony had been mortal before, large, but nothing unusual to Loki who had after all fucked a horse. But now Stark was as close to an Asgardian as mortals ever became, full of Idunn's apples and Hela's magic, strengthened and prepared for Ragnarök where he would be released upon the earth to fight for Asgard or Loki, depending on whose side Hela took. The last time Loki had fucked an Asgardian man he had felt as if he were being torn apart, but this time he had been stretched by his own fingers and then Tony's and he was relaxed from his orgasm still, and Tony went slow, waiting for him to adjust to his girth before pulling almost all of the way back out and forcing himself back in. Loki screamed, hands scrabbling at the ground, nails digging up dirt.

"Is that even possible?" Tony asked, glancing away from the sight of his cock disappearing back into Loki's body to watch the woman who was watching him. "With me being dead and all?"

Hela sat on her throne, wearing nothing more than a metal and leather bikini (or what Tony would have called a bikini, but Hela called something he couldn't even pronounce) and a thick fur cloak. Her face was hidden by a wide black mask, shaped like some sort of bird, but her green and blue eyes watched them with unhidden interest. "I suppose you should try to impregnate him and find out, hmm?"

Tony ignored her, because tonight he was not her warrior but Loki's mate and he had no obligation neither to answer her nor to respect her and he would take full advantage of not having to follow anyone's orders but Pepper's while he had the chance. He fucked Loki, fast and hard, careful to keep his head far back from Loki's for fear of a repeat performance of how he had died. But Loki kept his forehead to the ground, his mouth to Tony's shirt, filling his nose with the smell of the other man, his hair falling to hide his face from his daughter's sight. He felt no shame, no humiliation or embarrassment from knowing that she was watching. All he knew was that his mate was on him, in him, wanting him, and the fire raged in his body and his blood and his flesh screamed for more of everything he knew it needed to quench the flames. Hela's presence would not help him nor hinder him, so she was ignored; all of Loki's attention was focused on his mate and the pleasant coiling at the bottom of his abdomen and the sharp sting at the base of his spine.

When they were done, Loki having come with a desperate sob of Tony's name, crying as Tony came inside of him, groaning against the back of Loki's neck; mouth touching him for the first time that night, Loki felt it for the first time in so very long. The strange fullness was back; the tenderness in his chest, around his stomach; the odd waves of magic that gathered around him though he had not called on them to cast any spell; the urge to cover up his stomach, to keep it protected and safe: he was with child.

"Your heat is done?" Hela asked. She pushed up out of her throne, waving Tony towards her even as she walked closer. "Was it successful?"

"Yes," Loki whispered, trying not to keen at the loss he felt when Tony pulled out of him. The dead man began to dress again, because their deal had been one heat or until conception and Loki had conceived.

"Goodbye, father." Hela bid, while placing her right hand on Tony's shoulder. She steered him back towards the throne. "Perhaps we will see you on your next heat? Or you could bring the child to visit?" She sat, and Tony stood at her side half-hidden behind her throne.

"I would like to stay here," he said, climbing unsteadily to his feet. His thighs trembled as they always did once his heat passed, hands shaking too.

"Here?" Hela laughed lowly, seemingly very amused. "Whatever for, father?"

"My mate is here," Loki told her. He was unconcerned with his nakedness, but his hand pressed against his stomach, fingers splayed trying to hide that at least from sight. Tony's lips quirked again and one eyebrow rose up in a silent question and Loki responded by mouthing 'I love you' over Hela's shoulder.

His daughter did not speak again, either to accept or refuse and she did not call for any of her guards to force him to leave as she had done once before after they had fought, so he took her silence as permission. Loki called his clothes to his body, summoning them back into place. He moved to stand at Hela's other side, one shoulder behind her throne so that his fingers could lace with Tony's out of sight of anyone who would seek an audience with the Goddess of Death.

**The End**

I made up the name of Svadilfari's Master, but it is a Giant's name; just don't remember where from. Also, I totally genderbent Angrboða, sorry!

I hope you enjoy it anyway. And yeah, _sorry about the ending_, I don't know what happened there. I probably won't be writing anything else for a while (unless inspiration strikes this week) because I'm away for a fortnight after this week and then straight back to work.


End file.
